Giant Men and Violent Women

My Darlings

PRESLEY ANN

Pop! Pop! Pop! That's the sound of gunshots.

Already? My God, didn't dawn just break?

Ya know, I thank Ashley for this. Him and his bright ideas. Silence. Almost...

A far away sound of a reggae-folk guitar and bongos is in the muffled distance. Must be the Bronte boys practicing down the road. It's relaxing. There we go...

I let my mind settle back into sleep.

"So, how exactly do you cut-off someone's air supply?"

My eyes open to the question. I glance at the clock beside my bed. Six thirty-six in the morning. Sun, white linen, and vases of orange rosebuds surround me. With its wood floors, rocking chair, and bay window with a tiny cushion mattress, my room looks like a high school cheerleader named Muffin should wake up here...with the starting quarterback. I glance beside me. Nope. No quarterback. Though, in my defense, I would've likely had the captain of the lacrosse team in my bed. Definitely not a football player. I would never stoop so low. Not that I can be picky at the moment since I currently have no one in my bed.

Why am I even thinking about this?

Maybe it's the rosebuds. The orange rosebuds are courtesy of my new prisoner, Nona, who serves as my maid. She told me that orange rosebuds are made from cross-breeding yellow rosebuds and red rosebuds. The crossbreeding of gods and mortals is all I heard.

Nona's a nice girl—a former yoga instructor turned murderer, but nice nonetheless. She has this wavy, shiny cat-black hair and lips that are always red and smiling. Just a few months ago, Nona was a beautiful teacher of meditation. Surely, the murder was the victim's fault.

Last night, with her Slave Grays on, Nona walked into my bedroom after the sunset, carrying two vases filled with orange rosebuds. Their petals were fat and thick, dark on the outside and budding bright toward the inside, making them look like the insides of a blood orange.

"They're the wild child of the Rosebud family," Nona informed me as her eyes moved from me typing at my desk to my empty bed. "You have these yellow rosebuds that say, I just wanna be friends, and then you have these red rosebuds that say, Fuck me here; fuck me now. And then boom! Nine months later, here comes the orange rosebud, made from a night of passionate fucking. All. Night. Long."

Okay...

I watched her shrug.

"I don't know. Just thought you might like them." She turned on her toes and glided out of the room.

So, yeah, I have orange rosebuds. And, now...

"Well, I can tell you how I killed her," I hear my cook say. "But I have to warn you; it's not as glamorous as the movies would have you believe.

But, if that's okay with you..."

"Oh, that's fine, dear," Great Aunt says.

Yes, that's Great Aunt asking my cook, Bett, how to strangle someone successfully.

I decide to get out of bed at this point. Once again, I blame Ashley for this. Great Aunt's son—the former governor—was murdered, and since his spirit refuses to speak with anyone at this time, she's been on the hunt for his killer ever since.

Two years ago, Ashley started Rebels for the Revelation League because, apparently, him being a lawyer wasn't placing enough zeros in his paycheck. But I have to give it to him; his idea was genius. Rebels for the Revelation combines the things New Hampshirites love the most—history, competition, and guns. So, once a month, a battle of the Great Righteous War is reenacted in some small New Hampshire town that's filled with log cabins, a town hall, a general store, and red brick roads. Each month, civilians sit around in lawn chairs and watch the reenactors show us living history as they sip New Hampshire's favorite coffee blend—Black Honey.